Argentina
Argentina, 1861 to today. Draft, not yet reviewed
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the far south of South America. The Argentine Declaration of Independence on July 9 of 1816 and the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1825) were followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1880, culminating in the country's reorganisation as a federation. Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow and vice president, Isabel Perón, ascended to the presidency, before being overthrown in the final coup in 1976. The following military junta persecuted and murdered thousands of political critics, activists, and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism and civil unrest that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as president in 1983.
Seat of power: Buenos Aires
Rulers
Bartolomé Mitre
President of Argentina, 1862–1868
Mitre was President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868 and the first president of unified Argentina. The civil war of 1859, after the revolt of Buenos Aires against Justo José de Urquiza's federal system, resulted in Mitre's defeat by Urquiza at the Battle of Cepeda, in 1860.
Portrait of Bartolomé Mitre: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
President of Argentina, 1868–1874
Sarmiento was President of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. He also modernized and developed train systems, a postal system, and a comprehensive education system.
Portrait of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
Nicolás Avellaneda
President of Argentina, 1874–1880
Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth. The most important events of his government were the Conquest of the Desert and the transformation of the Buenos Aires into a federal district. Aged 37, he was the youngest Argentine president ever elected.
Portrait of Nicolás Avellaneda: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
Julio Argentino Roca
President of Argentina, 1880–1886
Roca is the most important representative of the Generation of '80 and is known for directing the Conquest of the Desert, a series of military campaigns against the indigenous peoples of Patagonia sometimes considered a genocide. Roca's main foreign policy concern was to set border limits with Chile, which had never been determined with precision.
Portrait of Julio Argentino Roca: Unknown photographer, Public domain, file
Miguel Ángel Juárez Celman
President of Argentina, 1886–1890
As president of Argentina, he promoted public works but was not capable of maintaining economic stability and had to contend with the powerful opposition of the Civic Union Party, and its leader Leandro N. Alem. After the Revolución del Parque, although he defeated the uprising, he was forced to resign and retired from political life.
Portrait of Miguel Ángel Juárez Celman: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
Julio Argentino Roca
President of Argentina, 1898–1904
During his two terms as president, many important changes occurred, particularly major infrastructure projects of railroads and port facilities; increased foreign investment, along with immigration from Europe and particular large-scale immigration from southern Europe; expansion of the agricultural and pastoral sectors of the economy; and laicizing legislation strengthening state power. In 1881 Argentina gained territory by treaty with Chile.
Portrait of Julio Argentino Roca: Unknown photographer, Public domain, file
Hipólito Yrigoyen
President of Argentina, 1916–1922
He was the first president elected democratically by means of the secret ballot and mandatory male suffrage established by the Sáenz Peña Law of 1912. Yrigoyen presided over a rise in the standard of living of Argentina's working class together with the passage of a number of progressive social reforms, including improvements in factory conditions, regulation of working hours, compulsory pensions, and the introduction of a universally accessible public education system.
Portrait of Hipólito Yrigoyen: Unknown author, Public domain, file
Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear
President of Argentina, 1922–1928
His period of government coincided precisely with the end of the postwar world crisis, which allowed him to improve the economy and finances of the country without major setbacks. When he left the presidency he settled in France.
Portrait of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear: Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain, file
Agustín Pedro Justo
President of Argentina, 1932–1938
Justo took part in the coup of 1930, becoming president two years later thanks to widespread electoral fraud. He established the country's central bank and introduced a nationwide income tax together with a maternity leave insurance system and paid vacations.
Portrait of Agustín Pedro Justo: Unknown authorUnknown author, CC0, file
Juan Perón
President of Argentina, 1946–1955
Perón's administration was influential for initiating industrialization, expanding social rights, and making university tuition-free. It also employed controversial tactics: dissidents were fired from their jobs, arrested or exiled, and the press was controlled. Perón was re-elected by a landslide in 1951, though his second term (1952–55) was troubled.
Portrait of Juan Perón: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
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Jorge Rafael Videla
President of Argentina, 1976–1981
His rule, which occurred during the Dirty War (1974–1983), was among the most infamous in Latin America during the Cold War due to widespread human rights abuses including murder, abduction, torture of activists and political opponents along with their families at secret concentration camps. An estimated 13,000 to 30,000 political dissidents were killed or disappeared during this period. In 1985, two years after the return of a representative democratic government, he was prosecuted in the Trial of the Juntas and convicted for large-scale human rights abuses and crimes against humanity during his rule.
Portrait of Jorge Rafael Videla: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file
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Raúl Alfonsín
President of Argentina, 1983–1989
After being elected president, Alfonsín revoked the self-amnesty law established by the military. He established the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons to investigate the crimes committed by the military, which led to the Trial of the Juntas and resulted in the sentencing of the heads of the former regime. Discontent within the military led to the mutinies of the Carapintadas, which Alfonsín appeased with the full stop law and the law of Due Obedience.
Portrait of Raúl Alfonsín: Presidencia de la Nación Argentina, CC BY 2.5 ar, file
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Carlos Menem
President of Argentina, 1989–1999
Menem's presidency supported the Washington Consensus and tackled inflation with the Convertibility plan in 1991. The plan was complemented by a series of privatizations and was initially a success. Under his administration, the country participated in the 1991 Gulf War and suffered two terrorist attacks: an attack on the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the 1994 AMIA bombing.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
President of Argentina, 2007–2015
She was the second female president of Argentina after Isabel Perón and the first to be directly elected to office. She nationalized private pension funds, and fired the president of the Central Bank. She established currency controls during her second term, and the country fell into sovereign default in 2014.
Portrait of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: Charly Díaz Azcue. Comunicación Senado., Public domain, file
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Javier Milei
President of Argentina, 2023 to today
He defeated the incumbent economy minister, Sergio Massa, in the second round of the 2023 presidential election, on a platform that held the ideological dominance of Kirchnerism responsible for the ongoing Argentine monetary crisis. Since taking office, Milei has focused on stabilizing Argentina's economy through spending cuts, deregulation, and monetary restraint. He has been described politically as a right-wing populist and libertarian who supports laissez-faire economics.
Portrait of Javier Milei: The White House, Public domain, file
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Culture
- The then sparsely populated country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several subsequent mass waves of millions of European immigrants (mainly Italians and Spaniards) significantly influencing its culture and demography.
- Victims of the violence in Argentina alone included an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 left-wing activists and militants, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas, and alleged sympathisers. Most of the victims were casualties of state terrorism.
- Raúl Alfonsín won the 1983 elections campaigning for the prosecution of those responsible for human rights violations during the Proceso: the Trial of the Juntas and other martial courts sentenced all the coup's leaders but, under military pressure, he also enacted the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, which halted prosecutions further down the chain of command.
- Between 1930 and 1976, the armed forces overthrew six governments in Argentina; and the country alternated periods of democracy (1912–1930, 1946–1955, and 1973–1976) with periods of restricted democracy and military rule.
Picture
The Casa Rosada is the official workplace of the president of the Argentine Republic, located in Buenos Aires.
Image: Lars Curfs (Grashoofd), CC BY-SA 3.0 nl, file
Sources
Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.